We stepped out of the shuttle in front of our hotel and drank in the tropics.  It was our first real vacation in years.  No meetings, no computers, no cell phones with the office set on one touch dialing.  A vacation!  Eight days in paradise.

We checked in and gazed out the 3 story high picture windows that framed the beach, and beyond that, the ocean.  Postcards fight over that scene.  That’s when the nice gentleman came over and asked if we had just arrived.  After establishing we had, he invited us to breakfast the following morning and in exchange for an hour of our time we could select an excursion of our choice during our stay.  Ah, the pitch.  Well, we’d been to time share sales pitches before and it seemed an innocuous way to get us up early on our first full day when we figured our biggest decision would be pool or beach.

The following morning we were up and met our hostess at our appointed time.  During a little chit chat before the hard sell commenced we discovered that this day was among her first days on the job.  So new was she that during the presentation she continuously referred to her lap where her script resided.  It was difficult to take someone speaking to her lap seriouslyas she tried to convince us to part with $20,000 on a lifetime of dream vacations.

We answered her questions between bites of powdered egg, heard of the benefits of the hotel chain’s “vacation club” sipping on cold coffee and tea, and expressed our reluctance over frozen concentrated orange juice.  “Thank you but we don’t think we travel enough to take advantage of such an expensive program.”

If we had only left it at that.  What exactly didn’t we like about paying the equivalent of a compact car at an interest rate that was illegal not too many years ago for an unspecified number of “points” that could be traded in for an unspecified amount of time at an unspecified location?  “Well, I think a big issue,” He of We began, “is not knowing exactly what we’re buying.”

If we had only left it at that, again.  “I understand.  It’s an investment.  Let me get my manager and he can explain it better.”  And off our hostess went in search of — da, da, da dum — The Manager.  We should have snuck out. 

“What can I help you with,” and The Manager was off and running.  He repeated the entire presentation in 7 minutes, explained he’d knock off a couple percentage points on the interest and bump our points purchase from a lowly 84,000 points to a total of 300,000 points.  “It’s not a deal I offer just anybody but you two look like you need the President’s Package.”  We knew we should have taken more vacations.

“What I don’t understand is exactly what your points get us.  What are we buying?” He of We asked innocently. 

The Manager was not backing down.  He sputtered a bit and tapped the proposal sheet Sales Rookie printed out with the basic costs and financing.  After takng a deep breath he began, “You’re getting the VIP Silver package of 300,000 points but you’re only paying for 84,000 points at the today only discounted price of 10% off at only $199 per 1,000 points and, again for today only, I’ll let you finance the down payment for six years so the total package comes to just $17,049 plus the deposit finance wrapped up into one payment for both loans with no early penalties, and you can upgrade as much as you want at the then current price after only two years.”  Throughout his explanation The Manager circled each number on the page and added his own notes ‘zero deposit,’ ‘two years,’ ‘no prepay penalty’ in his own handwriting facing himself so they were upside down to Both of We and upside down on the page.

“Uh huh.  But what are we buying for that $17,000?”   

The Manager didn’t look well.  His natural dark coloring took on a shade of red not seen in nature.  “Didn’t she show you the chart?” The Manager asked gruffly, spittle foaming at the corners of his mouth and glaring at Sales Rookie with that We’llTalkLater look.  “This explains it all.”  And he flipped open to The Chart.  It listed each of the 4,500 properties available, the number of days we want, the time of year, the upgraded packages, and the number of points it “costs” as long as Venus isn’t in a lunar eclipse.  He actually seemed agitated that we didn’t grasp that during the initial presentation. “Did I mention that we can add the monthly maintenance fee to your monthly payment so you only have to write one check?  No extra charge,” he hissed.

“But what are we actually buying?  For instance, if we want to buy this week for the whole week at this resort how many points is that?”  We think that’s when The Manager went over the edge.  It could be he hadn’t had anybody actually ask questions before.  It was either “Yes, where do I sign?” or “No, where do we sign up for our free excursion?”  We didn’t mean to raise his blood pressure.  After all, we were on vacation.  We’re the ones that should have been getting agitated.   We’d been there less than 18 hours and we were being asked to spend over twenty times the amount we spent on this vacation after a 90 minute presentation and a bad meal.

“Think it over!  Come back tomorrow!  I shouldn’t do this but I’ll give you an extra 24 hours to make up your mind!  Twenty-four hours!” 

That sounded fair to us.  We didn’t want to make any decisions (other than beach or pool) on the first day of our vacation anyway.  “By the way, where do we sign up for our free excursion?”

“Free what? We’ll take care of that tomorrow.”  The Manager took on a decidedly unhealthy rasp to his voice.  “Oh, never mind.  Stop at the desk on your way out.”

Never turn down the free excursion.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?